The Hundred’s future secured — for now
As The Hundred enters a pivotal new phase, with over £500 million (approx. $680 million) in investment and new franchise owners entering the fold, ECB Chair Richard Thompson has publicly reaffirmed the board’s commitment to the 100-ball format — while promising long-term changes to scheduling that will better balance national and franchise priorities.
Speaking to Sky Sports during England’s third ODI against South Africa on Sunday, in his capacity as an ambassador for the Alzheimer’s Society, Thompson addressed the competition’s structure, investment strategy, and criticism from stakeholders, including incoming team owners frustrated with England players’ limited availability.
“There are no easy answers, but the reality is we can’t have our cake and eat it,” ECB chairman Richard Thompson said, while discussing scheduling challenges around The Hundred competition.
Scheduling tension and England player availability
The ECB has come under fire for fixture congestion, with this year’s men’s Hundred starting just one day after an England Test and ending two days before the next ODI — effectively forcing players like Jamie Overton, Jamie Smith, and Ollie Pope to miss their opening match for London Spirit.
Thompson acknowledged the problem and committed to change.
“We want England players to play. This is our premium white-ball competition and we want England players to play in it. What we have to do is find a way of ensuring the schedule before and after the tournament [is better]. Take this year: the gap was a day or two days… That can’t be right.”
“If we’re going to get this level of investment, we’ve got to commit to ensuring our England players are available. We don’t want that to be at the expense of the success of England. We need to find a balance, and ultimately we can look at the schedule and we can try and free up time.”
A longer-term fix is likely to come in the next media rights cycle:
“We’ve done this deal in the middle of a rights schedule. Come ’28, when we then cut the next deal for the next four years, we can cut this in a different way. We might have a short-term issue here, but we can overcome that.”
Still, Thompson emphasized that player welfare and national priorities will remain non-negotiable:
“Ultimately, if a player feels they’re injured, they’re going to rest themselves. They won’t want to play on an injury. England is still everything here. But we are not prepared to accept that you can’t find a halfway house and work with the owners to ensure that the owner will get what they need, and England will get what it needs.”
No change in format through 2028
Thompson quashed speculation about The Hundred being restructured into a T20 tournament, confirming that the 100-ball format will remain through the current rights cycle ending in 2028.
“I can categorically tell you it’s 100 balls next year.”
“I don’t think anything will change in this rights cycle. Sky [the Hundred’s main broadcaster] have bought 100 [balls a side]. Sky are not going to want to change that. It’s up to the owners and the ECB to decide what that might be in the future.”
“Not selling the family silver”: ECB defends investor model
Critics have voiced concern that the sale of equity in The Hundred’s franchises amounts to handing over English cricket to private investors. But Thompson pushed back firmly.
“This is not English cricket selling off the family silver. This is English cricket bringing in investors to enable us to have a tournament that could challenge the IPL.”
He pointed to the strategic balance the ECB has struck between capital injection and long-term control:
“Well, we chose not to sell the summer, so we didn’t sell the tournament. We sold ownership in the teams.”
“If we had sold the summer, we would never get that back, so we still control the schedule. From that perspective, it’s unlike, say, the Six Nations deal that took place with rugby, it was very important that we took our investment the right way, and we took it in a way that the ownership structures and the owners think of themselves as custodians.”
“If you think of Fenway Sports and their relationship with Liverpool, they’re custodians first. Regardless of who it is that owns this venue, they recognise their key stakeholders in the game now, so it’s a co-investment. The fact is, we, as ECB, still recognise we have to create annuity income for the game, and we can’t sell that off, otherwise we’ll never get it back.”
Investment reshaping the tournament — and the game
According to Thompson, the scale of recent investment has already had a transformative impact on the ECB’s financial position and future ambitions.
“Well, I think within this TV rights cycle until 2028… I mean, the one thing is, we have owners who have very deep pockets. These individuals are very determined to turn this into the world-class tournament that it really will become now.”
“We are the clear challenger brand to the IPL and the quality of people that have chosen to invest — not all IPL owners — have a real ambition to turn this into something incredibly special. I mean, we are very lucky to have the partner we have, in Sky, who effectively co-created this tournament with us.”
The influence is being felt beyond the men’s game. Thompson says the women’s game stands to benefit enormously from the structural equality embedded in The Hundred:
“The impact it’s made on the women’s game has been profound. I think that will accelerate even further in terms of what we do there to ensure this parity over having men and women playing on the same day. I think you’re going to see Indian players coming into The Hundred faster as a result of this investment. Ultimately, we have something now that’s raised £1.1bn (approx. $1.496 billion).”
He concluded with a striking claim about the game’s financial transformation:
“We’ve managed to wipe off all of the debt within the game, which, you know, is something we didn’t think was possible, but we’ve managed to pull that off and leave hundreds of millions to invest in the game, to grow it, to ensure the game never has this level of debt again. This is a complete reset. It’s a moment we have to recognise as an endowment and use the funds that we’re getting into the game very smartly and very wisely.”
A clear direction, but tough questions remain
The ECB has made bold moves — opening up franchise equity, maintaining the 100-ball identity, and promising to fix player availability clashes — all while preserving national team interests.
But The Hundred still faces challenges around player workloads, calendar clashes, and the broader public’s trust in its direction. For now, Richard Thompson’s message is clear: The Hundred isn’t going anywhere — and it’s only just getting started.
